Addition of a PNG Team

[Blocker1963]

Listening to Sky Radio Sports this morning, there is a general consensus that they will try and introduce a PNG Team. I have a big issue with this, having lived in various parts of PNG over 5 years, with 3 years in Port Moresby. Having dealt and listened to politicians brag about their wealth, with corruption at its highest level, a certain Minister in a less paying portfolio bragging about owning houses in Cairns and Brisbane, and this being true. When a local Security employee earns equal to 80 cents Australian an hour and gets taxed at 56%. There is no Junior infrastructure and living in Port Moresby is pretty dangerous. But what surprises me, is the the NRL is willing to turn a blind eye to corruption and disparity. In PNG there is the rich and the poor, the rich are the politicians and the landowners from rich gold, gas deals, they wont show you the poor side of it., its pretty bad

 

[innsaneink]

Can't see how they could manage with no juniors...

 

[Buttface]

Listening to Sky Radio Sports this morning, there is a general consensus that they will try and introduce a PNG Team. I have a big issue with this, having lived in various parts of PNG over 5 years, with 3 years in Port Moresby. Having dealt and listened to politicians brag about their wealth, with corruption at its highest level, a certain Minister in a less paying portfolio bragging about owning houses in Cairns and Brisbane, and this being true. When a local Security employee earns equal to 80 cents Australian an hour and gets taxed at 56%. There is no Junior infrastructure and living in Port Moresby is pretty dangerous. But what surprises me, is the the NRL is willing to turn a blind eye to corruption and disparity. In PNG there is the rich and the poor, the rich are the politicians and the landowners from rich gold, gas deals, they wont show you the poor side of it., its pretty bad

🤣😂🤣
Sorry, but I found that pretty funny.
The NRL have no conscience and care only for the $$$.

 

[Bellend]

The shame about this is about 20 years ago there was a detail proposal from people in the know who stated to Artho back then that they need to have junior teams in either playing in Flegg and Matthews to help bring there juniors through the only thing i have seen in the PNG HUNTERS in the QRL and that is not enough exposure.As stated by Blocker1963 P.N.G is one of the most courrpt places in South East Asia you can run drugs and guns through there and have no troubles moving it.

 

[Asu Kepaoa's #1 Fan]

I don't know why this is being pushed so hard. PNG is a dangerous place to live. Players won't sign to play there. We can barely get players to go to Auckland to play for the Warriors. The next team should be in Perth, with teams 19 and 20 being another QLD team and a second NZ team.

 

[gallagher]

It would be nice if the chairman of the Australian RLC looked at Australia first. We must be the only sport that ignores such a large portion of the country.

 

[bptiger 0]

There still kidnapping people up there , so there is no hope of any players wanting to live there , and u can’t just have a team made up of local players , just won’t work

 

[crazycat]

Listening to Sky Radio Sports this morning, there is a general consensus that they will try and introduce a PNG Team. I have a big issue with this, having lived in various parts of PNG over 5 years, with 3 years in Port Moresby. Having dealt and listened to politicians brag about their wealth, with corruption at its highest level, a certain Minister in a less paying portfolio bragging about owning houses in Cairns and Brisbane, and this being true. When a local Security employee earns equal to 80 cents Australian an hour and gets taxed at 56%. There is no Junior infrastructure and living in Port Moresby is pretty dangerous. But what surprises me, is the the NRL is willing to turn a blind eye to corruption and disparity. In PNG there is the rich and the poor, the rich are the politicians and the landowners from rich gold, gas deals, they wont show you the poor side of it., its pretty bad

Having lived there myself for about 2 years, You are accurate.
Politicians in 3rd world countries are corrupt. I found coming back, you looked at your local politics and what you may have seen as a "coincidence" you saw quite clearly as Corrupt.

That said:
So what. The corruption is there, the corruption will be there. Either we have a NRL team there, or we don't. Long term this may make a positive improvement to corruption as the NRL standards give an example.
^Or no effect.

Realistically if we as a sporting nation had ears, we would have boycotted playing Srilanka over the Tamil-Sinhala massacre. Some Australian players did threaten to join the boycott and the Former English Captain Mike Atherton pushed for a boycott.

Although we did boycott Zimbabwe.


Look, if we are going to say "corruption is a step 2 far" then why have a world cup? We should instead pull out support for a PNG team when local conflict/massacres like Bouganville occur.

Also, PNG is safe. Safe is relative, players will get their wallets, cameras etc stolen. They won't be kidnapped and they will be fine. When people witnessed the tribal conflicts in the highlands, white people would be mid battle taking photographs. Literally two tribes are spearing each other to death and they will ignore you!

it's safe. As my host said it's safe. He then points to the 2x local police officers with Shotguns giving us escort... "see safe"

 

[Halbrowne61]

Listening to Sky Radio Sports this morning, there is a general consensus that they will try and introduce a PNG Team. I have a big issue with this, having lived in various parts of PNG over 5 years, with 3 years in Port Moresby. Having dealt and listened to politicians brag about their wealth, with corruption at its highest level, a certain Minister in a less paying portfolio bragging about owning houses in Cairns and Brisbane, and this being true. When a local Security employee earns equal to 80 cents Australian an hour and gets taxed at 56%. There is no Junior infrastructure and living in Port Moresby is pretty dangerous. But what surprises me, is the the NRL is willing to turn a blind eye to corruption and disparity. In PNG there is the rich and the poor, the rich are the politicians and the landowners from rich gold, gas deals, they wont show you the poor side of it., its pretty bad

Did business there for over 20 years and all you say is true. I think Albo is pushing the barrow to make them forget about Chinese support. Easy to see it’s a political football( pardon the pun) and our Govt really couldn’t care less otherwise. I’m sure PVL has been briefed.

 

[Halbrowne61]

Did business there for over 20 years and all you say is true. I think Albo is pushing the barrow to make them forget about Chinese support. Easy to see it’s a political football( pardon the pun) and our Govt really couldn’t care less otherwise. I’m sure PVL has been briefed.

PS. why was Joe Biden planning to visit PNG. Because they know if China gets its tentacles in , it’s a nine iron to Australia. And to have a sitting US president visit personally would show how highly they’re thought of. Well I’m sure that was the plan. If he makes another attempt to visit you can be certain.
Albo in Vietnam a similar thing. Strengthening ties in key areas. Any major conflict imo will start in the South China Sea and escalate from there.
Why do you think our fathers, brothers, uncles fought so hard in PNG to hold back the Japanese in WW2, because it’s a stepping stone to us and contains some of the worlds most lucrative mineral and other deposits.
We also play a defensive game.v Indonesia in West Papua for the same reason.

 

[Tiger_heart]

Really don't get this when in the same breath, people also talk about the lack of talent to play NRL...
Quality over quantity, please!

 

[weststigers]

The NRL is better off investing in junior development and bringing players over to Australia to expand the overall talent pool.

With a salary cap, no player will earn enough to be willing to move to PNG full time. $500,000 a year….Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or….Port Moresby. Sorry, but the players willing to move there to play would be limited and the local talent pool isn’t enough to put a competitive squad of 30 players together.

 

[Mistymuzzle]

Will never happen. No money there = no interest.

If the NRL cant make additional money out of TV rights, it wont expand there. There is no market there. massive intererest, untapped players but no market and no money. Never happen.

 

[AdelaideTiger]

If they didn't let the scum, also known as South Sydney back in, then we wouldn't have to worry about having an odd number of teams.

 

[Halbrowne61]

Really don't get this when in the same breath, people also talk about the lack of talent to play NRL...
Quality over quantity, please!

Huge game in PNG, Rugby League the national sport( not necessarily playing but watching), but a logistical nightmare to establish, and run a national team,however, I’m sure there are a few more Justin Olams up there.
I have read that one idea being floated is to play all their home games in Cairns, so that may be a possibility, but wouldn’t have many home supporters unless we put on subsidised flights etc from Pom( Port Moresby)- about 3hrs.

 

[weststigers]

Huge game in PNG, Rugby League the national sport( not necessarily playing but watching), but a logistical nightmare to establish, and run a national team,however, I’m sure there are a few more Justin Olams up there.
I have read that one idea being floated is to play all their home games in Cairns, so that may be a possibility, but wouldn’t have many home supporters unless we put on subsidised flights etc from Pom( Port Moresby)- about 3hrs.

PNG have the fans which is a big plus. What they don’t have is a juniors structure.

It takes years to set these things up and make them successful. The NRL should start with that otherwise that team will get walloped every week and be the joke of the competition.

Compare PNG to Redcliffe. Leagues club, juniors, stadium etc. PNG are not even in the ballpark.